


The Prophecy

by whatwecan



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gallifrey, In that he is a baby, Pete's World, young doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatwecan/pseuds/whatwecan
Summary: In Gallifrey, a Time-Lord's true name is given to them not by their parents, but by their beloved, their one true love.  Babies are taken to a seer in an ancient ritual, who peers through the sands of time to find their name.  But at the Doctor's naming ceremony, he receives instead a prophecy, a riddle which only time will unfold.





	

It was already an old story by the time he heard it, older still by the time it had wormed it’s way through the academy scuttlebutt to become the favored sling of his classmates. No name-a Theta, it didn’t even rhyme. 

Like every newly loomed babe, his mother took him on the day of his first birth-spring to visit the hermit and learn his name. In her recounting of the tale, his Mother always remembered how she’d strapped him to her chest with long indigo ribbons, and how he’d cooed and played with them the entirety of the steep vertical hike. 

It was said that the path to the old man’s hovel was paved with 7,200 granite steps but that anyone still counting past the obelisk of the immortals would soon lose the fortitude to reach their destination. It was also said that the old man had never regenerated, and that each step was a year in his one long life. Each sun-cycle, he supposedly moved that much further up the mountain, and when he reached the top it was said, he would drift away on a chariot of clouds.

Of course there were others who argued he never moved, just sat day in and out below the old tea tree, scamming tributes off young mothers and weaving self-fulfilling prophesies into the time stream. 

The Doctor, naturally, preferred the first legend. 

When his mother reached the Hermit’s perch, she slowly unbound the young Doctor and laid him on a bower of straw at the old man’s feet. The tinkling of her gold ducats seemed to her to ring across the wide cool chasm of the valley below. The Hermit nodded sagely, fetched his round tarnished mirror from his pocket, and gazed into it.

There was another legend. It told that as a young man, the Hermit had somehow taken the time vortex into his own head, that it had wiped his memory clean, removed all urges and desires and made it’s home inside him. That was why he’d ascended the mount Lung all those years ago. Unknowingly carrying all of time and space in his head, he’d only felt a sudden urge to si, and watch the mountain mists drift lazily by. And so he did, and so he sat, and only when he looked into his own eyes could he see all that was, all that is, and all that ever could be.

The naming ceremony was a simple affair, and it seemed to the Doctor’s mother that she could have gotten a little more pomp after her long climb and not insignificant donation. But it was that way with every child, the Hermit would retrieve his looking glass, and peer into the strands of time to find the child’s beloved, the one who, one day, would give them their name. 

Gently, the old man placed his mirror on a wide flat stone beside him and smiled down at the child by his feet. A warm light suffused the leathered wrinkles of his face.

“Your child is very special Madame, He will be a great traveler and he will become lost. But his path home will mark a trail that generations will follow.”

The Doctor’s mother rubbed her arms against the cool alpine air. She was growing impatient.

“And his name? What do we call him?”

The Hermit smiled again, sizing up the woman before him.

“His name I can not tell you, it is locked away.”

The Doctor’s mother stilled, her arms dropping limply to her side and a hard protective edge growing in her eyes. 

“Are you telling me my son will never find a mate, will never know love?”

The old man shook his head, raising his hand as if to stroke the babe’s temple before thinking better and resting it, palm up, in his lap.

“Your son will know a great love. He will find her in his ninth life, and she will name him… some time later. But his name is locked behind a wall, and I cannot see it.”

The Doctor’s mother dropped to her knees, gathering up her child and cradling him to her breast. 

“But what shall we do? How can he live with no name?”

With a hum of reassurance the old man patted her shoulder, his bright eyes never leaving the child’s face.

“He’ll meet her in his ninth life, why not call him Theta, for now?”

—

There’s dry salt on her lips from the sea air, as the Tardis slowly fades from the beach at Bad Wolf bay. Rose remembers the last time she was here, she’d waited, five and a half hours before finally breaking down. She’d wanted to stay longer, until the ice fingers of the tide numbed her sorrows. Only the warmth of her Mother’s voice had been able to bring her back to life.

But now he’s here. Rose can feel the heat of his palm trembling slightly in hers, like a man carrying a heavy burden whose muscles shake as he waits for the cue to set it down. She rests her head against his shoulder and he raises the hand not entwined with hers to gently cup her cheek.

“Will you miss him terribly?”

A hungry gull circles low and white above them. Rose wraps her arms around the Doctor’s slim waist burrowing her face deeper into the familiar scent of his chest.

“You are him.”

Later back at Torchwood, The Doctor sifts through the contents of his blue coat pocket and Rose can tell he’s mentally cataloguing his meager belongings. In front of her is a massive stack of paperwork, all the makings of an official life in this universe. It’s deja vu, Mickey has guided her and her mum through this very same process.

Rose crosses to where the Doctor is seated on the other side of the wide, grey metal desk, stroking the hair at the base of his skull. With her free hand she retrieves a white, pink, and yellow triplicate form from the stack. It’s as good a place to start as any. 

“This one’s for your ID. I still have your psychic paper but it’s nice to have something official, they’re barcoded over here anyway.”

The Doctor nods, absently twisting the pen in his fingers and staring blankly at the paper in front of him. 

“You can even pick out a name…” she tries to encourage him, not understanding why his breath catches. “you know, something human-y.”

The Doctor’s eyes drop closed, and it’s somewhere between a man savoring a last bite of chocolate and a man who’s just received a fatal diagnosis. He pushes the paper back towards her on the desk.

“You choose.”


End file.
